Free Crossroads Revisited by Keta Diablo

the big old bed, missing Rand more than he ever imagined he would.
    He spoke to Rand every day on the phone,
but it didn’t pacify his hunger or squelch the hot flames licking through his
veins. The sound of his voice sent his cock into permanent state of aching need
and a perpetual hard-on. He wondered if Rand felt the same longing and desire.
He didn’t want to ask him. What would be the point? Until Schumacher made his
move, he couldn’t see Rand.
    Anger and bitterness laced Rand’s words,
but he remained respectful. Frank couldn’t go down that road, either, but expound
on the necessity of keeping Emily, Marlow, and him away from whatever danger
lurked in phantom shadows. And they were phantom specters, unnamed,
unidentifiable enemies.
    Frank realized Rand knew it too when he
broached the subject during one of their phone conversations. “There’s one
thing bothering me about all this.”
    “What’s that?” Frank asked.
    “I understand why Schumacher is after
you, but why would he kill five college students along the way to get to you?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You do,” Rand countered quickly.
“Schumacher didn’t kill them, you just don’t know who did.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    A reel of film running through a
projector, images of Rand, naked and beneath him played over and over in his
mind.  He couldn’t remember a day in his life he denied his homosexuality, but
he remembered the day he cursed it. The day Rand looked at him with a longing
so deep, so utterly irrefutable, he would have given anything to wave a magic
wand and turn himself into a woman or, heaven forbid, a straight dude.   
    Quinn knew his son well, thank God, and
opened the door for Frank, unofficially. “I think Rand is a lot like you,” he’d
said.
    Frank recalled how he’d shriveled in the
passenger seat and said, “Oh, yeah, in what way?”
    Quinn had given him a sideways smirk
with a roll of his eyes.
    “You don’t know for sure. He’s only in
his early teens, things could change.”
    “McGuire, when did you first know?”
    Frank recalled wondering at the time why
the man seemed so accepting of people, and so goddamn smart. “At a much earlier
age than Rand is now.”
    “I see the way he looks at you, Frank.
It’s no longer big brother adoration.”
    “You want me to leave, not come for
dinner anymore?”
    “Rand is what he is, and so are you. I
can’t change that, and so I decided to love you both for as long as God’s
willing.”
    “Hey, Frank,” Rand said, interrupting
his thoughts. “You wander off into one of your meditative states?”
    “No, sorry, I’m still here. How’s it
going at the hotel?”
    “Oh, Disneyworld all the way. I’m loving
it. We’re one big happy family in one big happy room.”
    “I’m sorry about that. I thought it best
to find a ramshackle dump on the outskirts of the city.”
    “Well, you succeeded.” Rand blew a long
breath. “At least we have cable here.”
    “You shouldn’t be watching cable anyway.
How’s school going, you bringing your grades up?”
    “Anatomy is a bitch. I have a hard time
being enthusiastic over cervical sympathetic ganglia or intercondylar eminences .”
    “You lost me on cervical.”
    “Yeah, I’m lost, too, and the professor follows a
strict Taliban doctrine when it comes to running his class.”
    Frank laughed. “Oh, he can’t be all that bad.”
    “Gotta run. Marlow is whining louder than a cat in
heat with hunger pangs, and they’re ready to head out to the restaurant.”
    “All right, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
    “Hayworth still around?”
    “Stopped by the office yesterday. The final autopsy
reports came in and he’s meeting with the parents tomorrow night.”
    “The ME still claims they died from drowning and
cardiac arrest?”
    Frank reeled from the images crashing through his
brain and slumped into the lazy-boy. They rushed through at breakneck speed, so
fast he caught